


Small Broken Things

by timeless_alice



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Coldwaveweek2016, M/M, Not Beta Read, Self Harm, mention of childhood abuse, self hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 21:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6255742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeless_alice/pseuds/timeless_alice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst captivity is the one you can't escape from, no matter how you try.</p><p>Len gets stuck in his own head, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Broken Things

**Author's Note:**

> For the first day of coldwave week. Kinda stretching the prompt a bit, but it's fine. Also I'm pretty serious about those warnings. If you notice any mistakes, please let me know.

Len could handle the days where memories were a trickle, nothing more than reactions engraved into his very being. Slight shifts to the side when someone reaches out to touch him, a careful measuring of emotions as to not betray anything beneath his iron clad façade. On some level, in a small part of him that he kept tucked away in the corner of his mind, he understood this wasn’t really normal. There was something broken in him, something irreparable at a fundamental level, try as he might to untangle himself from his past.

But he could function. He climbed his way to the top of the criminal ladder, legendary for his eye for details, for his minute planning. Lisa had joked once, when they were younger and probably drunk, that maybe he should get checked for OCD. There were things wrong with him, it was true, a million of them that seemed to bend and twist and fold into each other until they seemed like a single monstrous entity, and he supposed it could be one of them. His need for control stemmed from something small and scared that he hated acknowledging, even as it drove him forward.

He was surviving, and that was all that mattered on most days.

The worst days were where it was a waterfall, where thoughts and memories looped and spiraled and dug their horrid, sharp claws into his skin. It didn’t take much to cause these days: small mistakes, certain phrases. Staring his father directly in the eye mere months after shooting him dead.

Len sat in the back corner of his room, out of sight from the door, stripped to just a muscle shirt and a ratty pair of jeans. His arms were folded across his chest, a finger tracing a faded scar along his bicep. Left behind from a bottle or nightstick, maybe a knife; he couldn’t remember and it didn’t matter. Scenarios were playing in his head, bleeding together, distorted by years of careful scrutiny and hindsight and infuriating “what ifs.”

If only he’d been more careful, if only he’d planned better, if only he’d gotten out of the damn way and did as he was told.

He gnawed at his lower lip, worrying at the skin with his teeth to tear at it until he was bleeding. The memories would play out, and a small part of him would whisper that it was not his fault. He didn’t deserve it, no one deserved what he went through. Another, ferocious part of him roared that he did, he did it was all his fault. He’s just whining and shifting blame, unable to take responsibility, like always.

He was a freak and worthless and he wanted to claw out of his skin, just dig nails into flesh until he was raw and bloody. But he didn’t, he wouldn’t; he didn’t want anyone asking him what was wrong because it was everything, didn’t they know how beyond broken their criminal mastermind teammate was?

The next breath he took rattled in his chest, even as he tried to calm himself. To push down the thoughts and image of his father pointing a gun at him, threatening to pull the trigger. To ignore how much he looked like his dad in his prime; same jawline, curve to his nose, thick dark hair, small stature. Looking at his dad, young and thin and new to being a father, was as good as looking at a mirror.

A voice, cruel and soft whispered in his ear, “You’re just like him. Stop pretending you’re any better.”

Worthless. A monster. It was like a stab to the gut but it was true, he knew it was true, and it made his insides turn. He glanced to the mirror in the room, considered for a moment going in and smashing it to pieces. Playing it off like an act of petty vandalism instead of a culmination of years of self-loathing. Maybe he’d tear up his knuckles.

There was a knock at his door, right as Len was gathering up the energy to do it. He lolled his head on his shoulders to watch it, but made no move to greet whoever was in the hall.

“Len?” Mick’s voice, distinct growl rumbling through the door. “Are you in there?”

A brief moment considering not answering, though that would lead to Mick coming in anyway. “I’m fine, Mick.” He was nothing if not a good pretender.  
But Mick knew him better than that; knowing someone so intimately, knowing all the secrets and behaviors they’d never show the outside world, meant that he was exceptional at reading Len. Even with a slab of metal between them. “You saw your old man today.” It was a statement of fact: Len saw his father, spoke to him in the house he suffered so long in, of course he wasn’t okay.

Len leaned back against the wall, spreading his legs out before him. “It’s unlocked.” A moment of silence and he clung to the fact that Mick’s there, a distraction from the thoughts that still swirled in his head, thundering and demanding his attention. A moment more and the door slid open, with Mick slipping in soon after.

“I’m over here,” Len said from his spot on the floor, resting his hands in his lap, head tilted to the side. A perfect imitation of his devil-may-care attitude that would convince anyone except Mick and Lisa.

Mick navigated the room to him, seeming too big and lumbering for the small space Len occupied. Len shifted towards the wall to give Mick space to sit between him and the bed. Mick’s hand brushed against Len’s arm and he jolted, an instinctive terror rushing through him as he pulled away. The warm comfort usually derived from his touch melted into Len’s fear of being touched, of any potential contact being violent.

“Fuck,” Len grumbled, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. He didn’t want to see the look Mick was giving him, something sad and sympathetic that had reminders of his love etched into every line of his face.

It was so easy to be angry and disgusted with himself.

“Len.” Mick’s hand was hovering over his thigh, radiating heat but not actually touching. Len gave a small nod, still covering his eyes, and Mick lowered his hand. Gentle and heavy and grounding. Len took a deep breath that still shook in his chest and throat, but he could push away the thoughts better. Stamp them down, for just a while.

“I should’ve killed him,” Len said, low and ragged. He couldn’t rein it in, there were tears pricking in his eyes. He hated it.

“You did kill him.” A soft reminder, odd from Mick’s smoke damaged throat. “He can’t hurt you or Lisa ever again.”

_I know,_ Len wanted to scream, _I killed him because I was desperate and scared and I was too cowardly to do it now._ But he remained silent, rigid and motionless even as that small, scared part of him urged him to lean against Mick. He played through the event again, repeating the threat he snarled in lieu of putting a bullet through the man, a new horror settling into his stomach that rocked him to his feet and set his skin a flame.

“I did this.” Cold and hateful, damning himself for being an idiot.

“What are you talking about?” Mick didn’t move, though Len could see the tension in him that meant he would in a second.

“I told him,” Len said, fury building, “that I couldn’t kill him because Lisa hadn’t been born yet.” He rounded on Mick, who was now climbing to his feet. “I told him that and now he’s going to rot for five years, thinking about what I said. _I_ broke him, not the prison system.”

Mick watched him, eyes narrowed and worried and Len didn’t need to see it. Didn’t want to see it, because he was right, it was his fault. Mick couldn’t understand, he wasn’t there and couldn’t possibly know. He stepped forward, hands out, never touching. He wanted to, Len knew it, just like he wanted to melt into Mick’s touch and not think about how he ruined Lisa’s chance at a good life.

“Your dad woulda gone south no matter what happened,” Mick said. “He was a bastard, Len.” He took another step forward, and Len didn’t move back, just wrapped his arms around himself. The flash of anger was melting away to just agony. “He hurt people because he liked it, you didn’t do anything.”

Len let himself be wrapped in Mick’s arms, falling against his chest as lips brushed against his forehead. He wished he could believe it.


End file.
